Our esteem of great powers, or amiable qualities newly discovered, may embroider a day or a week, but a friendship of twenty years is interwoven with the texture of life.
You can go through life and make new friends every year - every month practically - but there was never any substitute for those friendships of childhood that survive into adult years. Those are the ones in which we are bound to one another with hoops of steel.
"I speak, miss, of twenty years ago. He married--an English lady--and I was one of the trustees. His affairs, like the affairs of many other French gentlemen and French families, were entirely in Tellson's hands. In a similar way I am, or I have been, trustee of one kind or other for scores of our customers. These are mere business relations, miss; there is no friendship in them, no particular interest, nothing like sentiment. I have passed from one to another, in the course of my business life, just as I pass from one of our customers to another in the course of my business day; in short, I have no feelings; I am a mere machine. To go on--"
How, son of Nestor! shall I win from thee Not promise only, but performance kind Of my request? we are not bound alone To friendship by the friendship of our sires, But by equality of years, and this Our journey shall unite us still the more. Bear me not, I intreat thee, noble friend! Beyond the ship, but drop me at her side, Lest ancient Nestor, though against my will, Detain me in his palace through desire To feast me, for I dread the least delay.
From thence his way the Trojan hero bent Into the neighb'ring plain, with mountains pent, Whose sides were shaded with surrounding wood. Full in the midst of this fair valley stood A native theater, which, rising slow By just degrees, o'erlook'd the ground below. High on a sylvan throne the leader sate; A num'rous train attend in solemn state. Here those that in the rapid course delight, Desire of honor and the prize invite. The rival runners without order stand; The Trojans mix'd with the Sicilian band. First Nisus, with Euryalus, appears; Euryalus a boy of blooming years, With sprightly grace and equal beauty crown'd; Nisus, for friendship to the youth renown'd. Diores next, of Priam's royal race, Then Salius joined with Patron, took their place; (But Patron in Arcadia had his birth, And Salius his from Arcananian earth;) Then two Sicilian youths- the names of these, Swift Helymus, and lovely Panopes: Both jolly huntsmen, both in forest bred, And owning old Acestes for their head; With sev'ral others of ignobler name, Whom time has not deliver'd o'er to fame.
Such words, you may imagine, strongly excited my curiosity; but the paroxysm of grief that had seized the stranger overcame his weakened powers, and many hours of repose and tranquil conversation were necessary to restore his composure. Having conquered the violence of his feelings, he appeared to despise himself for being the slave of passion; and quelling the dark tyranny of despair, he led me again to converse concerning myself personally. He asked me the history of my earlier years. The tale was quickly told, but it awakened various trains of reflection. I spoke of my desire of finding a friend, of my thirst for a more intimate sympathy with a fellow mind than had ever fallen to my lot, and expressed my conviction that a man could boast of little happiness who did not enjoy this blessing. "I agree with you," replied the stranger; "we are unfashioned creatures, but half made up, if one wiser, better, dearer than ourselves--such a friend ought to be--do not lend his aid to perfectionate our weak and faulty natures. I once had a friend, the most noble of human creatures, and am entitled, therefore, to judge respecting friendship. You have hope, and the world before you, and have no cause for despair. But I--I have lost everything and cannot begin life anew."
11:6. And after the end of years they shall be in league together: and the daughter of the king of the south shall come to the king of the north to make friendship, but she shall not obtain the strength of the arm, neither shall her seed stand: and she shall be given up, and her young men that brought her, and they that strengthened her in these times.
On the birth of a second son, my junior by seven years, my parents gave up entirely their wandering life and fixed themselves in their native country. We possessed a house in Geneva, and a campagne on Belrive, the eastern shore of the lake, at the distance of rather more than a league from the city. We resided principally in the latter, and the lives of my parents were passed in considerable seclusion. It was my temper to avoid a crowd and to attach myself fervently to a few. I was indifferent, therefore, to my school-fellows in general; but I united myself in the bonds of the closest friendship to one among them. Henry Clerval was the son of a merchant of Geneva. He was a boy of singular talent and fancy. He loved enterprise, hardship, and even danger for its own sake. He was deeply read in books of chivalry and romance. He composed heroic songs and began to write many a tale of enchantment and knightly adventure. He tried to make us act plays and to enter into masquerades, in which the characters were drawn from the heroes of Roncesvalles, of the Round Table of King Arthur, and the chivalrous train who shed their blood to redeem the holy sepulchre from the hands of the infidels.
"It is the truth, however. Three or four times he has said to me, and certainly without the slightest premeditation, 'at such a period I was five years old, at another ten years old, at another twelve,' and I, induced by curiosity, which kept me alive to these details, have compared the dates, and never found him inaccurate. The age of this singular man, who is of no age, is then, I am certain, thirty-five. Besides, mother, remark how vivid his eye, how raven-black his hair, and his brow, though so pale, is free from wrinkles,--he is not only vigorous, but also young." The countess bent her head, as if beneath a heavy wave of bitter thoughts. "And has this man displayed a friendship for you, Albert?" she asked with a nervous shudder.
"Old Bielokonski" listened to all the fevered and despairing lamentations of Lizabetha Prokofievna without the least emotion; the tears of this sorrowful mother did not evoke answering sighs--in fact, she laughed at her. She was a dreadful old despot, this princess; she could not allow equality in anything, not even in friendship of the oldest standing, and she insisted on treating Mrs. Epanchin as her _protégée_, as she had been thirty-five years ago. She could never put up with the independence and energy of Lizabetha's character. She observed that, as usual, the whole family had gone much too far ahead, and had converted a fly into an elephant; that, so far as she had heard their story, she was persuaded that nothing of any seriousness had occurred; that it would surely be better to wait until something _did_ happen; that the prince, in her opinion, was a very decent young fellow, though perhaps a little eccentric, through illness, and not quite as weighty in the world as one could wish. The worst feature was, she said, Nastasia Philipovna.
"Nothing more simple," returned the count. "I had known the famous Vampa for more than ten years. When he was quite a child, and only a shepherd, I gave him a few gold pieces for showing me my way, and he, in order to repay me, gave me a poniard, the hilt of which he had carved with his own hand, and which you may have seen in my collection of arms. In after years, whether he had forgotten this interchange of presents, which ought to have cemented our friendship, or whether he did not recollect me, he sought to take me, but, on the contrary, it was I who captured him and a dozen of his band. I might have handed him over to Roman justice, which is somewhat expeditious, and which would have been particularly so with him; but I did nothing of the sort--I suffered him and his band to depart."
"I own that your question embarrasses me, Valentine, for I cannot say that the count has rendered me any ostensible service. Still, as I have already told you I have an instinctive affection for him, the source of which I cannot explain to you. Has the sun done anything for me? No; he warms me with his rays, and it is by his light that I see you--nothing more. Has such and such a perfume done anything for me? No; its odor charms one of my senses--that is all I can say when I am asked why I praise it. My friendship for him is as strange and unaccountable as his for me. A secret voice seems to whisper to me that there must be something more than chance in this unexpected reciprocity of friendship. In his most simple actions, as well as in his most secret thoughts, I find a relation to my own. You will perhaps smile at me when I tell you that, ever since I have known this man, I have involuntarily entertained the idea that all the good fortune which has befallen me originated from him. However, I have managed to live thirty years without this protection, you will say; but I will endeavor a little to illustrate my meaning. He invited me to dine with him on Saturday, which was a very natural thing for him to do. Well, what have I learned since? That your mother and M. de Villefort are both coming to this dinner. I shall meet them there, and who knows what future advantages may result from the interview? This may appear to you to be no unusual combination of circumstances; nevertheless, I perceive some hidden plot in the arrangement--something, in fact, more than is apparent on a casual view of the subject. I believe that this singular man, who appears to fathom the motives of every one, has purposely arranged for me to meet M. and Madame de Villefort, and sometimes, I confess, I have gone so far as to try to read in his eyes whether he was in possession of the secret of our love."
"My father thought that this action had been miraculously performed--he believed that a benefactor had arisen from the grave to save us. Oh, it was a touching superstition, monsieur, and although I did not myself believe it, I would not for the world have destroyed my father's faith. How often did he muse over it and pronounce the name of a dear friend--a friend lost to him forever; and on his death-bed, when the near approach of eternity seemed to have illumined his mind with supernatural light, this thought, which had until then been but a doubt, became a conviction, and his last words were, 'Maximilian, it was Edmond Dantes!'" At these words the count's paleness, which had for some time been increasing, became alarming; he could not speak; he looked at his watch like a man who has forgotten the hour, said a few hurried words to Madame Herbault, and pressing the hands of Emmanuel and Maximilian,--"Madame," said he, "I trust you will allow me to visit you occasionally; I value your friendship, and feel grateful to you for your welcome, for this is the first time for many years that I have thus yielded to my feelings;" and he hastily quitted the apartment.
LOCKWOOD, SIR FRANK (1846-1897), English lawyer, was born at Doncaster. His grandfather and great-grandfather were mayors of Doncaster, and the former for some years filled the office of judge on the racecourse. He was educated at a private school, at Manchester grammar school, and Caius College, Cambridge. Called to the bar at Lincoln's Inn in 1872, he joined the old midland circuit, afterwards going to the north-eastern, making in his first year 120 guineas and in the next 265 guineas. From that time he had a career of uninterrupted success. In 1882 he was made a queen's counsel, in 1884 he was made recorder of Sheffield, and in 1894 he became solicitor-general in Lord Rosebery's ministry, and was knighted, having first entered parliament as Liberal member for York in 1885, after two unsuccessful attempts, the one at King's Lynn in 1880, the other at York in 1883. He was solicitor-general for less than a year. In 1896 Lord Chief Justice Coleridge, Mr Montague Crackanthorpe and Sir Frank Lockwood went to the United States to attend, as specially invited representatives of the English bar, the nineteenth meeting of the American Bar Association. On this trip Sir Frank Lockwood sustained the reputation which he enjoyed in England as a humorous after-dinner speaker, and helped to strengthen the bond of friendship which unites the bench and bar of the United States with the bench and bar of England. He died in London on the 18th of December 1897. Lockwood had considerable talent for drawing, inherited from his father, which he employed, chiefly for the amusement of himself and his friends, in the making of admirable caricatures in pen and ink, and of sketches of humorous incidents, real or imaginary, relating to the topic nearest at hand. An exhibition of them was held soon after his death. Entry: LOCKWOOD
Immediately after graduation he became an assistant in his brother William's school for young ladies in Boston, and continued teaching, with much inward reluctance and discomfort, for three years. The routine was distasteful; he despised the superficial details which claimed so much of his time. The bonds of conventionalism were silently dissolving in the rising glow of his poetic nature. Independence, sincerity, reality, grew more and more necessary to him. His aunt urged him to seek retirement, self-reliance, friendship with nature; to be no longer "the nursling of surrounding circumstances," but to prepare a celestial abode for the muse. The passion for spiritual leadership stirred within him. The ministry seemed to offer the fairest field for its satisfaction. In 1825 he entered the divinity school at Cambridge, to prepare himself for the Unitarian pulpit. His course was much interrupted by ill-health. His studies were irregular, and far more philosophical and literary than theological. Entry: EMERSON
Tethmosis III. was succeeded by his son Amenophis II., whom he had associated on the throne at the end of his reign. One of the first acts of the new king was to lead an army into Syria, where revolt was again rife; he reached and perhaps crossed the Euphrates and returned home to Thebes with seven captive kings of Tikhsi and much spoil. The kings he sacrificed to Ammon and hanged six bodies on the walls, while the seventh was carried south to Napata and there exposed as a terror to the Ethiopians. Amenophis reigned twenty-six years and left his throne to his son Tethmosis IV., who is best remembered by a granite tablet recording his clearance of the Great Sphinx. He also warred in northern Syria and in Cush. His son Amenophis III., c. 1400 B.C., was a mighty builder, especially at Thebes, where his reign marks a new epoch in the history of the great temples, Luxor being his creation, while avenues of rams, pylons, &c., were added on a vast scale to Karnak. He married a certain Taia, who, though apparently of humble parentage, was held in great honour by her husband as afterwards by her son. Amenophis III. warred in Ethiopia, but his sway was long unquestioned from Napata to the Euphrates. Small objects with his name and that of Taia are found on the mainland and in the islands of Greece. Through the fortunate discovery of cuneiform tablets deposited by his successor in the archives at Tell el-Amarna, we can see how the rulers of the great kingdoms beyond the river, Mitanni, Assyria and even Babylonia, corresponded with Amenophis, gave their daughters to him in marriage, and congratulated themselves on having his friendship. The king of Cyprus too courted him; while within the empire the descendants of the Syrian dynasts conquered by his father, having been educated in Egypt, ruled their paternal possessions as the abject slaves of Pharaoh. A constant stream of tribute poured into Egypt, sufficient to defray the cost of all the splendid works that were executed. Amenophis caused a series of large scarabs unique in their kind to be engraved with the name and parentage of his queen Taia, followed by varying texts commemorating like medals the boundaries of his kingdom, his secondary marriage with Gilukhipa, daughter of the king of Mitanni, the formation of a sacred lake at Thebes, a great hunt of wild cattle, and the number of lions the king slew in the first ten years of his reign. The colossi known to the Greeks by the name of the Homeric hero Memnon, which look over the western plain of Thebes, represent this king and were placed before the entrance of his funerary temple, the rest of which has disappeared. His palace lay farther south on the west bank, built of crude brick covered with painted stucco. Towards the end of his reign of thirty-six years, Syria was invaded by the Hittites from the north and the people called the Khabiri from the eastern desert; some of the kinglets conspired with the invaders to overthrow the Egyptian power, while those who remained loyal sent alarming reports to their sovereign. Entry: 1
DELUC, JEAN ANDRÉ (1727-1817), Swiss geologist and meteorologist, born at Geneva on the 8th of February 1727, was descended from a family which had emigrated from Lucca and settled at Geneva in the 15th century. His father, François Deluc, was the author of some publications in refutation of Mandeville and other rationalistic writers, which are best known through Rousseau's humorous account of his ennui in reading them; and he gave his son an excellent education, chiefly in mathematics and natural science. On completing it he engaged in commerce, which principally occupied the first forty-six years of his life, without any other interruption than that which was occasioned by some journeys of business into the neighbouring countries, and a few scientific excursions among the Alps. During these, however, he collected by degrees, in conjunction with his brother Guillaume Antoine, a splendid museum of mineralogy and of natural history in general, which was afterwards increased by his nephew J. André Deluc (1763-1847), who was also a writer on geology. He at the same time took a prominent part in politics. In 1768 he was sent to Paris on an embassy to the duc de Choiseul, whose friendship he succeeded in gaining. In 1770 he was nominated one of the Council of Two Hundred. Three years later unexpected reverses in business made it advisable for him to quit his native town, which he only revisited once for a few days. The change was welcome in so far as it set him entirely free for scientific pursuits, and it was with little regret that he removed to England in 1773. He was made a fellow of the Royal Society in the same year, and received the appointment of reader to Queen Charlotte, which he continued to hold for forty-four years, and which afforded him both leisure and a competent income. In the latter part of his life he obtained leave to make several tours in Switzerland, France, Holland and Germany. In Germany he passed the six years from 1798 to 1804; and after his return he undertook a geological tour through England. When he was at Göttingen, in the beginning of his German tour, he received the compliment of being appointed honorary professor of philosophy and geology in that university; but he never entered upon the active duties of a professorship. He was also a correspondent of the Academy of Sciences at Paris, and a member of several other scientific associations. He died at Windsor on the 7th of November 1817. Entry: DELUC
ASBJÖRNSEN, PETER CHRISTEN (1812-1885), and MOE, JÖRGEN ENGEBRETSEN (1813-1882), collectors of Norwegian folklore, so closely united in their life's work that it is unusual to name them apart. Asbjörnsen was born in Christiania on the 15th of January 1812; he belonged to an ancient family of the Gudbrandsdal, which is believed to have died with him. He became a student at the university in 1833, but as early as 1832, in his twentieth year, he had begun to collect and write down all the fairy stories and legends which he could meet with. Later he began to wander on foot through the length and breadth of Norway, adding to his stores. Moe, who was born at Mo i Hole parsonage, in Sigdal Ringerike, on the 22nd of April 1813, met Asbjörnsen first when he was fourteen years of age. A close friendship began between them, and lasted to the end of their lives. In 1834 Asbjörnsen discovered that Moe had started independently on a search for the relics of national folklore; the friends eagerly compared results, and determined for the future to work in concert. By this time, Asbjörnsen had become by profession a zoologist, and with the aid of the university made a series of investigating voyages along the coasts of Norway, particularly in the Hardanger fjord. Moe, meanwhile, having left Christiania University in 1839, had devoted himself to the study of theology, and was making a living as a tutor in Christiania. In his holidays he wandered through the mountains, in the most remote districts, collecting stories. In 1842-1843 appeared the first instalment of the great work of the two friends, under the title of _Norwegian Popular Stories (Norske Folkeeventyr)_, which was received at once all over Europe as a most valuable contribution to comparative mythology as well as literature. A second volume was published in 1844, and a new collection in 1871. Many of the _Folkeeventyr_ were translated into English by Sir George Dasent in 1859. In 1845 Asbjörnsen published, without help from Moe, a collection of Norwegian fairy tales (_huldreeventyr og folkesagn_). In 1856 the attention of Asbjörnsen was called to the deforestation of Norway, and he induced the government to take up this important question. He was appointed forest-master, and was sent by Norway to examine in various countries of the north of Europe the methods observed for the preservation of timber. From these duties, in 1876, he withdrew with a pension; he died in Christiania on the 6th of January 1885. From 1841 to 1852 Moe travelled almost every summer through the southern parts of Norway, collecting traditions in the mountains. In 1845 he was appointed professor of theology in the Military School of Norway. He had, however, long intended to take holy orders, and in 1853 he did so, becoming for ten years a resident chaplain in Sigdal, and then (1863) parish priest of Bragernes. He was moved in 1870 to the parish of Vestre Aker, near Christiania, and in 1875 he was appointed bishop of Christiansand. In January 1882 he resigned his diocese on account of failing health, and died on the following 27th of March. Moe has a special claim on critical attention in regard to his lyrical poems, of which a small collection appeared in 1850. He wrote little original verse, but in his slender volume are to be found many pieces of exquisite delicacy and freshness. Moe also published a delightful collection of prose stories for children, _In the Well and the Churn (_I Bronde og i Kjærnet), 1851; and _A Little Christmas Present (En liden Juleegave)_, 1860. Asbjörnsen and Moe had the advantage of an admirable style in narrative prose. It was usually said that the vigour came from Asbjörnsen and the charm from Moe, but the fact seems to be that from the long habit of writing in unison they had come to adopt almost precisely identical modes of literary expression. (E. G.) Entry: ASBJÖRNSEN
Soon after the club began to exist, Johnson formed a connexion less important indeed to his fame, but much more important to his happiness, than his connexion with Boswell. Henry Thrale, one of the most opulent brewers in the kingdom, a man of sound and cultivated understanding, rigid principles, and liberal spirit, was married to one of those clever, kind-hearted, engaging, vain, pert young women who are perpetually doing or saying what is not exactly right, but who, do or say what they may, are always agreeable. In 1765 the Thrales became acquainted with Johnson, and the acquaintance ripened fast into friendship. They were astonished and delighted by the brilliancy of his conversation. They were flattered by finding that a man so widely celebrated preferred their house to any other in London. Johnson soon had an apartment at the brewery in Southwark, and a still more pleasant apartment at the villa of his friends on Streatham Common. A large part of every year he passed in those abodes, which must have seemed magnificent and luxurious indeed, when compared with the dens in which he had generally been lodged. But his chief pleasures were derived from what the astronomer of his Abyssinian tale called "the endearing elegance of female friendship." Mrs Thrale rallied him, soothed him, coaxed him, and if she sometimes provoked him by her flippancy, made ample amends by listening to his reproofs with angelic sweetness of temper. When he was diseased in body and in mind, she was the most tender of nurses. No comfort that wealth could purchase, no contrivance that womanly ingenuity, set to work by womanly compassion, could devise, was wanting to his sick room. It would seem that a full half of Johnson's life during about sixteen years was passed under the roof of the Thrales. He accompanied the family sometimes to Bath, and sometimes to Brighton, once to Wales and once to Paris. But he had at the same time a house in one of the narrow and gloomy courts on the north of Fleet Street. In the garrets was his library, a large and miscellaneous collection of books, falling to pieces and begrimed with dust. On a lower floor he sometimes, but very rarely, regaled a friend with a plain dinner--a veal pie, or a leg of lamb and spinach, and a rice pudding. Nor was the dwelling uninhabited during his long absences. It was the home of the most extraordinary assemblage of inmates that ever was brought together. At the head of the establishment Johnson had placed an old lady named Williams, whose chief recommendations were her blindness and her poverty. But, in spite of her murmurs and reproaches, he gave an asylum to another lady who was as poor as herself, Mrs Desmoulins, whose family he had known many years before in Staffordshire. Room was found for the daughter of Mrs Desmoulins, and for another destitute damsel, who was generally addressed as Miss Carmichael, but whom her generous host called Polly. An old quack doctor named Levett, who had a wide practice, but among the very poorest class, poured out Johnson's tea in the morning and completed this strange menagerie. All these poor creatures were at constant war with each other, and with Johnson's negro servant Frank. Sometimes, indeed, they transferred their hostilities from the servant to the master, complained that a better table was not kept for them, and railed or maundered till their benefactor was glad to make his escape to Streatham or to the Mitre Tavern. And yet he, who was generally the haughtiest and most irritable of mankind, who was but too prompt to resent anything which looked like a slight on the part of a purse-proud bookseller, or of a noble and powerful patron, bore patiently from mendicants, who, but for his bounty, must have gone to the workhouse, insults more provoking than those for which he had knocked down Osborne and bidden defiance to Chesterfield. Year after year Mrs Williams and Mrs Desmoulins, Polly and Levett, continued to torment him and to live upon him. Entry: A